Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Reporting & Analytics
    4. Google Analytics: Different stats for date range vs single month?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Google Analytics: Different stats for date range vs single month?

    Reporting & Analytics
    3
    5
    8348
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • Bio-RadAbs
      Bio-RadAbs last edited by

      I've been scratching my head, chin, and you name it over this one.

      I have an advanced segment to remove bot traffic from my data. When I look at the Audience Overview data for a single month (let's say Aug). I am shown a session count.

      No problems here, however If I set the date range to (January - August). The august monthly stats is incorrect, much lower. What this means is that, if I export a CSV report from Jan-Aug, the data is wrong compared to individually recording a month.

      Anyone faced this? I've asked the question over at the Google Analytics technical section as well, but no answer

      P.S I even used the 'control the number of sessions used to calculate this report' tool but no luck.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • Bio-RadAbs
        Bio-RadAbs last edited by

        Google's pre-built filters are working fine for me (i.e. all sessions) and it's my bot filter when I view via a date range vs month only that is causing the confusion.

        I got an answer from the google analytics technical page. There is a setting to exclude bot traffic, therefore avoiding the need to build custom segments.

        You can do this for each profile so I've turned it on to test, let's see how my results turn out. If it removes the bot traffic automatically, then the date range wouldn't change. Here's how to do it:

        Admin >> View Settings >> Bot Filtering (Click the Check Box) then the Save button. Done... no need for a dedicated segment.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • RG_SEO
          RG_SEO last edited by

          I agree with Bendall that sampling is what is most likely causing your problem here. You may find this post useful: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1042498?hl=en-GB

          I suspect that the reason that your sampled total closely matches the total of individually downloaded monthly data is because sampled data is Google's 'best guess' when the data in the date range becomes too large. This best guess is based on sound statistics, but ultimately there will be some variances. I've found these variances get bigger the larger your site and the larger your date range. Google do this to reduce load on their servers as crunching the numbers for large data sets can be very resource intense. You COULD upgrade to Google Analytics Premium which gives you un-sampled data as standard, but this is very expensive and only really suitably for large organisations.

          There is no easy way round this I'm afraid. I'd suggest that you think about what level of data you are comfortably using - sampled data can still give you valuable insights / trends. Some are comfortable with using sampled data (I prefer now too). I believe there are some tools that allow you to download un-sampled data from Google Analytics via their API but I have not tried these.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • Bio-RadAbs
            Bio-RadAbs @Bendall last edited by

            I didn't know about this. I always thought the a data range would show the same data as the small range.

            Strange thing is, If I note down each month's sessions individually and then add them up, they closely match the total session count my data range gives. Its just that my month data within the range that is wrong.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Bendall
              Bendall last edited by

              Are you sure the data in the larger date range is not being "Sampled". Always more dependable to add up smaller date ranges from my experience in the free version of GA, as if their is too much data to crunch it will take a sample and upscale it.

              Regards

              Ben

              Bio-RadAbs 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • 1 / 1
              • First post
                Last post

              Got a burning SEO question?

              Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


              Start my free trial


              Browse Questions

              Explore more categories

              • Moz Tools

                Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

              • SEO Tactics

                Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

              • Community

                Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

              • Digital Marketing

                Chat about tactics outside of SEO

              • Research & Trends

                Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

              • Support

                Connect on product support and feature requests.

              • See all categories

              Related Questions

              • ahirai

                Using logical operators (AND / OR) in Google Analytics Goal Funnels

                When setting up a Funnel within Google Analytics, is it possible to use logical operators (e.g. OR, AND) in the first (required) step of the funnel? For example, suppose I want to track users who visit page1.html AND page2.html before proceeding to the destination goal. I've entered two pages separated by the OR operator, and neither the "Verify this Goal" nor "Save" produces an error message - is it safe to assume that this is working as I intend? Thanks in advance!

                Reporting & Analytics | | ahirai
                0
              • Armen-SEO

                Tracking 301 redirect traffic in Google Analytics

                if I 301 redirect www.mywebsite.com to go to www.yourwebsite.com, how can I track the traffic in Google Analytics that is coming from mywebsite.com??  I don't think that's a referral traffic, is it?

                Reporting & Analytics | | Armen-SEO
                0
              • ChrisAllbones

                Can you track two Google Analytics Accounts on one site?

                If you have a site that had an old analytics account and then implemented a new one is it possible to run tracking code that records to both accounts without causing your site or data issues? We are doing this so we don't loose data at any point - ideally it wouldn't have been split between the two but making one redundant isn't an option. Ideally we would have merged the data from both accounts and had one - however the research we have done points to this not being a possibility - unless one of you guys knows different? It would be great if anyone has experience on any this.. Thanks

                Reporting & Analytics | | ChrisAllbones
                0
              • geckonm

                Tracking time spent on a section of a website in Google Analytics

                Hi, I've been asked by a client to track time spent or number of pages visited on a specific section of their website using Google Analytics but can't see how to do this. For example, they have a "golf" section within their site and want to measure how many people either visit 5 page or more within the golf section or spend at least 6 minutes browsing the various golf section pages. Can anyone advise how if this can be done, and if so, how I go about it. Thanks

                Reporting & Analytics | | geckonm
                0
              • aaronprimal

                Referral Traffic vs. Campaign Traffic in Google Analytics

                I have two sites: a blog and an ecommerce site. The blog funnels people to the ecommerce site. In Analytics I'm seeing declines in referral traffic from the blog to the ecommerce site. During the same time I'm seeing an increase in campaign traffic to the ecommerce site, with most campaign traffic coming from the blog. I believe the increase in campaign traffic is largely a result of simply having installed more tracking links. This leads me to believe that the declines I'm seeing in referral traffic is simply a result of the increase in campaign traffic. In other words, what was once counted and reported as being referral traffic is now being counted and reported as campaign traffic. So my question is this: In Google Analytics is campaign traffic ALSO reported as referral traffic, or is campaign traffic reported separately and not duplicated in referral traffic reports? I'll provide a concrete example to make this more clear in case it isn't: Say site X sends 1000 visits each month to site Y. Say 50 of those visits come from a single link on X. If that link is changed so that campaign Z data info added (via the Google URL Builder), would you expect to then see 950 referral visits each month from site X to site Y plus 50 campaign visits to site Y via new campaign Z, or would you continue to see 1000 referral visits plus the new 50 campaign visits? Many thanks in advance to anyone that can shed some light on this.

                Reporting & Analytics | | aaronprimal
                0
              • 10SL

                Google Analytics Organic Search Keywords Suddenly Displaying FulL Urls

                In my Google Analytics, the top keywords for Organic Search are suddenyl displaying full URLs. For example, now the third and fourth keywords are http://www.domain.com/highly-specific-URL. These have all started recently around the same day, July 12th. I've checked back, and we've made no internal changes to the site around that time that could affect this. Any thoughts on this? Thanks! P.S. It might be related to rich snippets, but I cannot tell at this point.

                Reporting & Analytics | | 10SL
                0
              • CabbageTree

                Is there a way to use Google Analytics event tracking for YouTube embedded videos on my website?

                Hello! I am trying to track different types of interaction on the YouTube for videos which are embedded on a website to measure the interaction on these video from my organic traffic.  Is there a good way to go about this with the code since these are coming from an iFrame on YouTube?  Would appreciate any feedback or help on implementing the event tracking with YouTube videos. Many thanks!

                Reporting & Analytics | | CabbageTree
                0
              • pwpaneuro

                Custom Variables to track Vimeo plays on website with Google Analytics?

                Hello Everyone, I'm trying to track how many times a Vimeo video is played on my site via GA. Does any of you have any knowledge of how can this be achieved? I've read the documentation and came up with this: After the iframe embed i insert this: Of course the GA is loaded in the header. Does not work, at least i cant see anything in analytics. I have set up the segment as per the attached image. Thanks in advance! Alex E6XnO.png

                Reporting & Analytics | | pwpaneuro
                0

              Get started with Moz Pro!

              Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

              Start my free trial
              Products
              • Moz Pro
              • Moz Local
              • Moz API
              • Moz Data
              • STAT
              • Product Updates
              Moz Solutions
              • SMB Solutions
              • Agency Solutions
              • Enterprise Solutions
              • Digital Marketers
              Free SEO Tools
              • Domain Authority Checker
              • Link Explorer
              • Keyword Explorer
              • Competitive Research
              • Brand Authority Checker
              • Local Citation Checker
              • MozBar Extension
              • MozCast
              Resources
              • Blog
              • SEO Learning Center
              • Help Hub
              • Beginner's Guide to SEO
              • How-to Guides
              • Moz Academy
              • API Docs
              About Moz
              • About
              • Team
              • Careers
              • Contact
              Why Moz
              • Case Studies
              • Testimonials
              Get Involved
              • Become an Affiliate
              • MozCon
              • Webinars
              • Practical Marketer Series
              • MozPod
              Connect with us

              Contact the Help team

              Join our newsletter
              Moz logo
              © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
              • Accessibility
              • Terms of Use
              • Privacy

              Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.